Pear Tree Nursery West Road

This week the Baby Bugs have visited Animal Magic where they purchased everything they require for their fish tank. Some of the Foraging Foxes helped pick the stone colours for the tank and today they got to go back and pick their two fish. The Baby Bugs are very excited and are enjoying watching the fish swim around in the tank.

Thank you so much to everyone who has donated over the last two days for Red Nose day. We have managed to raise a total of £125.51, a special thanks to everyone who baked cakes for our sale. We have all enjoyed being in our PJ's, onesies and dressing up.

Today some of the children have been carrying out different experiments, to see what happens when you mix different items together. We asked the children to make a prediction on which way would make the biggest eruption. Using vitamin tablets and cold or hot water, the children predicted that the hot water would work best. The children were correct the hot water caused a much bigger eruption than cold water. The next experiment was soft mints and cola, we added the mints into... the cola. First, we used a jug where we added the mints to the cola in the jug, there was no reaction. We then added the mints directly to the cola in the bottle and this caused a big eruption. The children commented lava exploded into the air. We finished off our experiments with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar and this caused a fizzy reaction.
We then participated in a weather cloud experiment where we discussed different types of weather and where rain comes from. We used food colouring, shaving foam and water which all represented a different element. The children had to use their fine motor skills to use a pipette to transport the food colouring onto the clouds (shaving foam). The children predicted that the rain would get stuck in the clouds because they were to thick but to their surprise the rain came through into the water below. We watched all the different colours mix together to create a different colour. #BSW19
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Look what arrived late yesterday afternoon!! We have two new additions to the nursery. The brown rabbit is known as Archie and the White rabbit is Pippa. They are settling in nicely to their new home and Pippa has been enjoying the children saying hello 🐰🐰

Today in our 3-5's we decided to set up the Tunnel Engineers activity from the British Science Week pack. The children explored different media (sand, pebbles and water) alongside different tools. Pictures of tunnels were printed off as a visual aid and everyone who wanted to take part listened to the instructions for what they were to do. Through discussion with the children about the photographs they said the following "they are round curves" "bricks" "tongs to pick up clay?" "i am making a pattern in the tunnel" "i have made a hole using the wooden stick for the car" The children worked well together. After a while the children chose to make ramps for cars and buses to reach the tunnel, extending the activity, working together to decide how to make it happen. #BSW19 #engineers #science

Today for World Book Day we have been very busy. A group of us went to the library and we listened to stories, the library kindly gave us some books to bring back to nursery. We are going to use them in our lending libraries that we are setting up just now. We also had a visit from Taylor Wimpey who are kindly giving us £250 to spend on books for both West Road and Meadowpark. We had some lovely professional photos taken which we cannot wait to see. A group also visited the Haddington Care Home to see our friends there where we played parachute games together. All the rooms have been given £1 World book day tokens, if you haven't got your one yet please see a member of staff.

Last weekend we had our annual team build which involved all the staff from both West Road and Meadowpark. We started our day by having a meal at the golf tavern before returning to Meadowpark where we were split into teams to participate in a variety of team building games. These games involved us communicating together, problem solving and working together to complete the set tasks. Lots of fun was had and it was a great chance for everyone to get to know each other better.

In our indoor environment we have been using our different senses to explore different sensory activities. We use our creative skills daily through all aspects of our play for e.g. to create towers using the blocks, exploring open ended resources and we are involved in preparing our own snack daily which builds Independence and develops life skills.

We have been spending lots of time outside in our garden where we have been exploring our natural curiosity to paint pictures, make kites and create out our potions using our mud kitchen and other media. When out at our local park some of the children were very confident to climb up very high in the spiders web

We have been enjoying exploring our local community through our intergenerational visits and walks to the park, round by the river and to our local library.

Today our 2-3's visited Haddington care home where we created pictures, decorated bunting and did tartan pictures for burns day. The children and residents worked together to create there own masterpieces.

On Tuesday our 3-5's and a small group of our 2-3's went along to the Compass school and did some paired reading with Form 7. During our visit we also used the IPad's to create our own pictures. They very kindly printed off our pictures so we could take them home. We really enjoyed our visit and look forward to our next one.

This morning the 2-3's and 3-5's went to the museum that is within our local library. The children enjoyed exploring it independently trying on different hats, watching the short video on the local area and creating there own postcards.

This morning the children in the 3-5 room took the bus to Tranent to deliver some food to the food bank. The volunteers showed us how they weigh out the food and where it all gets stored before being made into packages. We then went for our first visit of the new year to Herdmandflats hospital to see our friends, they were all so excited to see us. We sang songs together and got to meet some of the new residents, then we told them what things Santa had brought us. On our way to the care home we came across the Scottish ambulance service so we stopped to look at the ambulance in the car park, this lead on to a discussion about nurses, doctors and paramedics.

We now have our Rag a Bag bin set up in our car park. If you are having a clear out of your clothes, please feel free to donate some items to our bin and we can raise money towards our Eco schools initiative every time it is uplifted. Follow this link for further information https://www.rag-bag.co.uk/what-we-collect .php

Wishing all our families and friends a Happy New Year 💕🎉 x

Merry Christmas from all the staff and children at Pear Tree Nursery. We hope you all have a great time and that Santa is good to you all :)

Yesterday the 3-5's had a small Christmas party with our friends as part of our intergenerational work. We sang Christmas songs and played party games and they very kindly gave each of the children a book to take home. We cannot wait to continue our visits in 2019.#SSSCXmas2018

Yesterday a group of our 3-5 children went on a trip to Dunbar train station to see some train's and other forms of transport. We traveled by bus, once we got there we were given some train tickets from the conductors at the station. On our way back to nursery we had an extra surprise as Santa was driving our bus, so we sang Jingle bells as we were getting off. The children all really enjoyed this experience #SSSCXmas2018